Posted on 08/30/2015 7:11:45 PM PDT by Lorianne
How China used more cement in 3 years than the U.S. did in the entire 20th Century
China used more cement between 2011 and 2013 than the U.S. used in the entire 20th Century.
It’s a statistic so mind-blowing that it stunned Bill Gates and inspired haiku. But can it be true, and, if so, how? Yes, China’s economy has grown at an extraordinary rate, and it has more than four times as many people as the United States. But the 1900s were America’s great period of expansion, the century in which the U.S. built almost all of its roads and bridges, the Interstate system, the Hoover Dam, and many of the world’s tallest skyscrapers. And China and the U.S. are roughly the same size in terms of geographic area, ranking third and fourth in the world, respectively.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
There should be a comparison with steel as well because now buildings are built around a central concrete tower that the outer steel is attached to. and then not so much steel mosnly concrete. The cement form is slid up and filled then slid up again. My building the two comcast buildings and then a new one next door where all done this way. so for the last 20 years this looks more like the norm in construction.
Wanna hear insane? My wife bought an 18 pack of eggs from Wal-Mart today and didn’t notice the price on the receipt until she got home, $6.53.
bird flu
Cement-making is very energy intensive (see below).
Do the enviro-heads know about this? Have they raised a major stink over the red Chinese destroying the planet by causing climate change?
No, I didn’t think so.
“Cement accounts for 83% of total energy use in the production of non-metallic minerals and 94% of CO2 emissions. Energy represents 20% to 40% of the total cost of cement production. The production of cement clinker from limestone and chalk by heating limestone to temperatures above 950°C is the main energy consuming process. Portland cement, the most widely used cement type, contains 95% cement clinker. Large amounts of electricity are used grinding the raw materials and finished cement.
The clinker-making process also emits CO2 as a by-product during the calcination of limestone. These process emissions are unrelated to energy use and account for about 3.5% of CO2 emissions worldwide and for 57% of the total CO2 emissions from cement production. Emissions from limestone calcination cannot be reduced through energy-efficiency measures or fuel substitution, but can be diminished through production of blended cement and raw material selection.”
Here’s hoping that they didn’t use Chinese cement in all of that. there is some really low quality stuff out there.
theres low quality everything from china. I had to fix a pipe wrench. a pipe wrench. 150 year old technology.
The first pipe, or stillson, wrench was created by Daniel C. Stillson while working as a mechanic at the Walworth Company, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[1] On October 12, 1869, U.S. patent #95,744 was issued to Stillson.[2]
It is possible to use an ordinary twist drill to make a hole in Chinese concrete. They don’t seem to understand that the water/cement ratio is fixed by chemistry. The Chinese also do not test the concrete used in the construction of bridges, dams, and road to verify that it meets specifications. Well, they don’t actually use any sort of specifications for concrete.
I wonder how many of the tenants in the Chinese buildings know that they'll possibly be pulverized when their cheaply built high rises come tumbling' down.
We have a winner!
Ghost cities indeed!
Around 50 VERY large cities. go t google images or youtube and search for china ghost cities. That'll show you where all that cement went.
BIG problem though. 64 MILLION apartments that cost $300,000. Average Chinese makes about 6k/yr. Requires 50% up front and the rest within 3 yrs. I'd assume you'd lose the first 50% if you couldn't get the 2nd.
And you have to bring your own pluming and wiring.
Like the rest of China's economy, it's all a lie.
The volume of concrete in the Three Gorges would build just under 11 copies of the Hoover dam. (10.9 or so) That’s a lot of concrete...
I too spent years in China.
The quality of the buildings is outrageously
poor. You see a shiny building go up and a few
years later it looks like it’s totally dilapidated.
Well, in the US we specify concrete, but I have never seen any engineering calculation where the strength of the concrete was actually used. I have seen hundreds of detailed building plans (commercial, residential and industrial) and in every case, calculations are done using only the strength of the steel reinforcement.
Designing for the rebar is a standard practice taught in every engineering school. The reason is that there is so much more area of concrete than rebar that the strength of the concrete is always many times higher than necessary.
That looks like it could be a sinkhole, which wouldn’t be due to poor construction materials.
I don't pay much attention to prices, but I did notice last week that an 18 pack of eggs was around $6, when I would have expected something like $3.50.
I guess it's not just me then.
the ChiComs don’t care about civilian deaths. they happily killed a couple thousand at Tianamen Square while the whole world was watching and dared anyone to do anything about it.
the same country that blows up it’s own civilians by accident and refuses to admit blame...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelsat_708
the same country that executes prisoners so that their organs can be sold on the black market...
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-33844080
et. al.
it disgusts me how the west has overlooked the true nature of China and has opted to begin doing business there in the past 20 years. if i could avoid any and all products made there, i would. sadly that’s just about impossible these days. this a country run by evil communists who do not hold or accept the value system that we take for granted here in the USA. anybody with any wealth there is connected to the PLA. you cannot do business there without PLA consent.
oh yeah, and the Clintons exported secret missile technology to the Chinese in the 90’s that has helped them improve their nuclear delivery systems. the same nuclear weapons that are pointed at US bases around the world, and perhaps even LA.
finally, just a reminder why China should not be a member in good standing of the civilized world...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hainan_Island_incident
that sort of thing used to be considered an act of war.
it’s a recent run-up in price, due to large stocks of egg laying chickens being culled over avian flu fears.
http://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/6-dozen-eggs-prices-may-continue-rise-if-bird-flu-n404011
This presupposes that chinese accounting and chinese statistics coincide with reality. How likely is that?
In my neck of the woods brown eggs are more popular. The brown and white eggs are side by side in the cooler where I shop. I watch people buy brown eggs almost exclusively. Brown eggs $3.59 a dozen, white eggs $2.58 a dozen. Makes no sense to me.
yeah well I don’t write the titles.
I find most people use the terms cement and concrete interchangeably. I long ago stopped correcting them.
Yep.
Yet we have nobel prize winning economist lecturing us that all infrastructure spending is good spending whether or not it is put to productive use. As long as it creates jobs (temporarily) and the stock market is humming ... that’s all that matters.
Then we get the very same people lecturing us about over use of energy and resources.
White eggs are racist. You should always buy eggs of color.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.